The PBS series “American Experience” recently presented an interesting insight into the Amish community. Mark Sammels, the executive director of the series, said “In our 23 years, with almost 300 films completed, this was the most difficult that we’ve ever made.” One of the reasons for the difficulty is the fact that the Amish believe that photographs or videos violate the second commandment that prohibits graven images. Interestingly enough the Amish don’t object to photographs taken from a distance when they are engaged in outdoor activity but only to indoor and personal encounters with the camera. As a result, the Amish are heard speaking off camera during the interview process. A second reason for the difficulty concerns the nature of the Amish community itself.
One of the interesting techniques employed in the film “The Amish” is to emphasize the outsider nature of the Amish community. This is done by viewing the Amish from the spectator position of the tourist at both the beginning of the film as well as at the end of the film. Ironically, the Amish desire to separate themselves from the mainstream has turned their lifestyle into a tourist attraction. An Amish man is heard commenting off camera that there seems to be little difference between the Amish community and Disneyland from the tourists’ point of view.
The Amish settled in Pennsylvania in the 1730s. The historian Donald B Kraybill observes in the documentary that it isn’t the Amish that have changed but it is the world around them that has changed. With the advent of electricity, telephones, automobiles and other technological devices that became the norm in the 1920s in the United States, the Amish community made a conscious choice to separate themselves from the American mainstream. The upshot of this is that the Amish consciously choose to go the other way. The reason for this is twofold. One the one hand, as mentioned several times during the film, is the theological belief that one is closer to God when one has a more intimate relationship with nature. The second reason is their belief that the unity of the community and the family is easier to maintain in a rural context The Amish insist on living in a pre-industrial world as much as this is possible.
On the one hand, choosing nature, communal living, and a rural life over the hustle and distractions of the city has a strong appeal for many beyond the confines of the Amish community. The contrast between life in a technological society and life in a more natural and pre-technological age has been studied by a number of sociologists, anthropologists, and cultural historians. The contrast between culture and nature has its roots in the idea of agriculture.
One of the first serious critiques of technology was by the French sociologist Jacques Ellul. “The Technological Society” by Ellul is a phenomenological study into the ways that technology the world and the human beings who inhabit the world. Ellul’s book first appeared in the 1950s in France. It was translated into English in 1964. Ellul’s book paints a picture of a world completely dominated by technology; a world that the Amish are painstakingly trying to avoid. Ellul would agree with the Amish view that technology changes that way that people live and interact with one another. It is interesting to keep in mind that Ellul is a Marxist and Christian who wrote several books on theology.
Karl Marx championed the industrial age for its liberating potential, at the same time, Marx warned of the dangers of industrialism as well when it was completely driven by the capitalist desire for profit. In an early work written in the 1840s titled The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Marx listed three types of alienation; the alienation of labor, the alienation of social relationships, and the alienation from nature, including internal nature or the sense of self.
The sense of community, family, and work that forms the core of the Amish community is an attempt to maintain a non-alienated and living relationship with nature and with others. The centrality of labor is an essential part of the Amish point of view. Marx was heavily influenced by Hegel and by Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic in particular. Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic addresses the relationship between labor and self-consciousness. According to Hegel, self-consciousness emerges through a confrontation and struggle for recognition with the other. The Master is the apparent winner in the struggle because he forces the slave to submit. In doing so, however, he fails to recognize the slave as a fellow human being and so the slave’s recognition of his mastery carries little value. Furthermore, the Master alienates himself from nature because his relationship to nature is mediated through the slave’s labor. The slave’s labor on the other hand, and his relationship with nature, results in a self-transforming that allows the slave to overcome his slave status. It is interesting to note that Hegel was a Protestant and that Marx’s father was a Lutheran minister. Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic was also very influential on Martin Luther King.
One of the essential characteristics of the Amish that is emphasized in the PBS documentary is the idea of free will. The young people in the Amish community have to decide if they will join or leave the church when they reach a certain age. A small number choose to leave, however, according to the documentary 90 percent of the teenagers decide to remain in the Amish community. One of the more controversial and troubling issues addressed by the documentary is the issue of education. Amish children leave school once they have completed the eighth grade. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of Amish parent to remove their children from school after the eighth grade in a 1972 decision. At this age, the children have acquired the basic educational rudiments such as reading, writing, and mathematics and avoiding further education also insulates them from peer pressure and outside influences. A couple of Amish children are interviewed who speak about how depressed they were when their education came to an end.
The documentary concludes by raising several questions about the ability of Amish communities to endure in the 21st century. Amish families and communities keep moving westward in search of cheaper land. The rising costs of real estate and property is undermining the ability of Amish communities to make their living off of the hand. As an alternative, young Amish men being compelled to make their livings outside the Amish communities in factories exposing them to outside influences. Young Amish teenagers, like any teenager, are becoming more and more curious about electronic devices and media.
Sources
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society
Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts